Given my posting about the recent NY Times article on Pentagon Influence of Military Commentators (plus an administrative issue) I am re-posting an entry from the end of December.

An Email from two retired AF Generals

Some time ago I was in Kansas City and saw an interesting full two page advertisement in the Kansas City Star. The ad was a rebuttal to a single full page ad that had run earlier in the week in the same newspaper. The original ad lambasted the Kansas Governor for refusing to allow the construction of a coal based electrical plant.
In the same way, what I am about to do is go through the text of this email I posted earlier and offer some comments. My comments will show as italicized text.

While finalizing this rebuttal I recently was sent a document that makes an interesting contrast with this effort. The document is the summary comments of the findings of General Barry McCaffrey regarding his December 2007 visit to Iraq. The contrast in both content and tone to that of the two Air Force Generals is astounding for its candor and factual presentation. By the way, I have no prejudices towards any of the other services I was not a part of. I would have the same comments on the AF Generals’ words were they Navy Admirals.

What follows now is the content of the email by the Air Force Generals with my comments.

Please read---all the way to the end. 
********************************************
            This is one of the most profound articles that I have ever read about this Presidency, this era and this so-called war. Everything this man says makes perfect sense to me.              
            No matter your politics, you owe it to yourself to read and pass on so we all are informed of what's going on in our world!

            Another assessment of where the US stands in relation to the Middle East problems, this one is from the guy who had his finger on the nuclear trigger for three years as head of our defense and response complex buried under Cheyenne Mountain at Colorado Springs. He was the only person who could initiate a nuclear attack after advising the sitting president of a missile launch by our enemies and our need to respond. No political or civilian type in the US had more knowledge about day to day military actions around the world.  Everyone should find quiet time to read this. As far as I am concerned, it is exactly the direction we should go and the consequences of not doing so are well thought out.

                John R. (Jack) Farrington Major General, USAF (Retired)
                --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
              
 Middle East Imperative
 BY: JIM CASH, Brig. Gen., USAF, Rette.

                I wrote recently about the war in Iraq and the larger war against radical Islam, eliciting a number of responses.  Let me try and put this conflict in proper perspective.
               
                Understand, the current battle we are engaged in is much bigger than just Iraq. What happens in the next year will affect this country and how our kids and grandkids live throughout their lifetime, and beyond. Radical Islam has been attacking the West since the seventh century. They have been defeated in the past and decimated to the point of taking hundreds of years to recover.  But they can never be totally defeated. Their birth rates are so far beyond civilized world rates that in time they recover and attempt to dominate again.
               
                There are eight terror-sponsoring countries that make up the grand threat to the West.  Two, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, just need firm pressure from the West to make major reforms.  They need to decide who they are really going to support and commit to that support.  That answer is simple.  They both will support who they think will hang in there until the end, and win. We are not sending very good signals in that direction right now, thanks to the Democrats. (Sorry General, but the Republicans aren’t blameless here. Republicans have, thanks to their ineptness at war planning and execution exposed our weaknesses. They also show ineptness at providing solutions through economic, diplomatic and political means. Do you really think we will overcome political repression in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan with “firm pressure”? Aren’t you confusing internal political repression in those countries with state sponsorship of terror?)
                 
                The other six, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya will require regime change or a major policy shift.  Now, let's look more closely.
                Afghanistan and Iraq have both had regime changes, but are being fueled by (fueled by??) outsiders from Syria and Iran.  We have scared Gaddafi's pants off, and he has given up his quest for nuclear weapons, so I don't think Libya is now a threat.
                North Korea (the non-Islamic threat) can be handled diplomatically by buying them off.  They are starving. (Plus China, who has much more influence on them than we do, does not want North Korea to have Nukes.) That leaves Syria and Iran. Syria is like a frightened puppy.  (Is that why Israel allegedly had to bomb a WMD facility they had? Doesn’t sound like a frightened puppy to me) Without the support of Iran they will join the stronger side.  So where does that leave us? 
            Sooner, or later, we are going to be forced to confront Iran, and it better be before they gain nuclear capability. (Note this was published before we knew via a revised Intelligence Estimate that the Iranians gave up on nukes 3 years ago.)
               
                In 1989 I served as a Command Director inside the Cheyenne Mountain complex located in Colorado Springs, Colorado for almost three years. My job there was to observe (through classified means) every missile shot anywhere in the world and assess if it was a threat to the US or Canada.  If any shot was threatening to either nation I had only minutes to advise the President, as he had only minutes to respond.  I watched Iran and Iraq shoot missiles at each other every day, and all day long, for months.  They killed hundreds of thousand of their people.  Know why? They were fighting for control of the Middle East and that enormous oil supply. (Actually, it was more of a fight over one province with a disputed border and free access to the Persian Gulf. See Wikipedia. By the way, wasn’t the shooting part of the Iraq-Iran War over in 1988? Were you in Cheyenne Mountain before you were Command Director?)
                At that time, they were preoccupied with their internal problems and could care less about toppling the west.  Oil prices were fairly stable and we could not see an immediate threat.  Well, the worst part of what we have done as a nation in Iraq is to do away with the military capability of one of those nations.  (Yep. Another consequence of Republican leadership failing to look at the ripple effect of invading Iraq, as well as making the decision to disband the Iraqi Army.) Now, Iran has a clear field to dominate the Middle East, since Iraq is no longer a threat to them. They have turned their attention to the only other threat to their dominance, they are convinced they will win, because the US is so divided, and the Democrats (who now control Congress and may control the Presidency in 2008) have openly said we are pulling out. (More accurately, what most Democrats seem to be saying is that they want an orderly withdrawal from Iraq, but not from the region. With regard to Iraq, the question is not how do we go away, the question is how we get out of the way and let Iraq settle its own internal affairs without interference from outsiders like Iran.)
               
                Do you have any idea what will happen if the entire Middle East turns their support to Iran, which they will obviously do if we pull out? (Sorry, General, but the rest of the Middle East turning their support to Iran is not obvious at all. The Saudis, for example, are not trusting of the Iranians. There are a lot of other leverages described in a book called Statecraft that could be applied were it not for the influence of the Neo-cons in the current administration.) It is not the price of oil we will have to worry about.  Oil WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE to this country at any price.  I personally would vote for any presidential candidate who did what JFK did with the space program---declare a goal to bring this country to total energy independence in a decade. (Something you and I can agree on, finally. Right now we need what they have and they’re in the driver’s seat. Reduce that oil dependency and we change the whole dynamic.)

                Yes, it is about oil.  The economy in this country will totally die if that Middle East supply is cut off right now.  It will not be a recession. It will be a depression that will make 1929 look like the "good-old-days". The bottom line here is simple.  If Iran is forced to fall in line, the fighting in Iraq will end over night, and the nightmare will be over.
                One way or another, Iran must be forced to join modern times and the global community.  It may mean a real war---if so, now is the time, before we face a nuclear Iran with the capacity to destroy Israel and begin a new ice age I urge you to read the book "END GAME" by two of our best Middle East experts, true American patriots and retired military generals, Paul Vallely and Tom McInerney.  They are our finest, and totally honest in their assessment of why victory in the Middle East is so important, and how it can be won.  Proceeds for the book go directly to memorial fund for our fallen soldiers who served the country during the war on terror.  You can find that book by going to the internet through Stand-up America at www.ospreyradio.us or www.rightalk.com.
                 
                On the other hand, we have several very angry retired generals today, who evidently have not achieved their lofty goals, and insist on ranting and raving about the war.  They are wrong, and doing the country great harm by giving a certain political party reason to use them as experts to back their anti-war claims. (Most of these generals you say are wrong have actual ground combat experience in country and know first hand the people, the combatants and the incompetent civilian leadership of the last few years. These are all things you lack, so how can you say the other generals are “wrong”? See VoteVets.org for more details about those generals’ concerns. In short, I would give much more weight to the opinions of those generals than you and I dispute your statement that those generals are “wrong” and anti-war.)
                You may be one of those who believe nothing could ever be terrible enough to support our going to war.  If that is the case I should stop here, as that level of thinking approaches mental disability in this day and age.  It is right up there with alien abductions and high altitude seeding through government aircraft contrails.  I helped produced those contrails for almost 30 years, and I can assure you we were not seeding the atmosphere.  The human race is a war-like population, and if a country is not willing to protect itself, it deserves the consequences. Nuff-said!!! (I, too, believe that there are times when you must fight to protect what is near to you. I also believe that when you feel you must fight, then you must fight to win. My assessment is that the Bush Administration has not fought to win.)
                Now, my last comments will get to the nerve.  They will be on politics. I am not a Republican.  And, George Bush has made enough mistakes as President to insure my feelings about that for the rest of my life. However, the Democratic Party has moved so far left, (What basis do you have to make this claim, general? Are you saying that because groups like Code Pink oppose Republicans that Democrats endorse groups like Code Pink? Don’t you remember Ike Skelton, the Chair of the Armed Services committee and a Democrat from Missouri saying during the Petraeus hearings about Code Pink (he thought his microphone was off) “I hate these guys”?)  they have made me support those farther to the right.  I am a conservative (Meaning what? Define ‘conservative’ in 50 words or less without listing which issues you are for or against.) who totally supports the Constitution of this country.  The only difference between the United States and the South American, third world, dictator infested and ever-changing South American governments, is our US Constitution. (A Constitution which this Republican Administration has attempted to circumvent repeatedly through its theory of the Unitary Executive. Ask yourself this. Do you want Hillary Clinton exercising the same powers that George W. Bush is exercising? If your answer is no, then George W. Bush should not have access to those powers now. We have Presidents under our Constitution, not kings.)
                This Republic (note I did not say Democracy) is the longest standing the world has ever known, but it is vulnerable.  It would take so little to change it through economic upheaval.  There was a time when politicians could disagree, but still work together.  We are past that time, and that is the initial step toward the downfall of our form of government.
                I think that many view Bush-hating as payback time.  The Republicans hated the Clinton's and now the Democrats hate Bush.  So, both parties are putting their hate toward willingness to do anything for political dominance to include lying and always taking the opposite stand just for the sake of being opposed.  JUST HOW GOOD IS THAT FOR OUR COUNTRY? (Fair enough. See our commentary in this blog about consistency vs. inconsistency.)
                In my lifetime, after serving in uniform for President's Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush I have a pretty good feel for which party supported our military, and what military life was like under each of their terms.  And, let me assure you that times were best under the Republicans.
                Service under Jimmy Carter was devastating for all branches of the military. And, Ronald Reagan was truly a salvation.  You can choose to listen to enriched newscasters, and foolish people like John Murtha (he is no war hero), Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Michael Moore, Jane Fonda , Harry Reid, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and on-and-on to include the true fools in Hollywood if you like.  If you do, your conclusions will be totally wrong. (Once again, we have blanket statements based on personal opinion. His is a commonly held opinion by military people who have only been on the operational side of the military and have no sense of the budgetary process, procurement and political workings. For example, in Federal Budgeting monies are projected for budget in five year increments in what is known as the Program Objective Memorandum (POM). The military component of the POM is the Five Year Defense Plan (FYDP). In 1982, after years of research and development, the Army began the fielding of a modernization program that included things like the Abrams Tank, Bradley Fighting Vehicle System and Patriot Missile System. That means the monies for those procurements were allocated back in 1977 when Jimmy Carter was President and both houses of Congress were controlled by Democrats. But given the timing of things, Reagan and the Republicans got the credit and Carter and the Democrats got the blame. Similarly, in the mid-1990s, the Clinton Administration was blamed for the reduction in military forces. But when were those reductions projected in the POM and the FYDP? How about the late 1980s and early 1990s? And who was in charge then? George H. W. Bush and Dick Cheney, but given the timing of things, which party gets the credit and which party gets the blame?)
                The reason that I write, appear on radio talk shows, and do everything I can to denounce those people is simple.  THEY ARE PUTTING THEIR THIRST FOR POLITICAL POWER AND QUEST FOR VICTORY IN 2008 ABOVE WHAT IS BEST FOR THIS COUNTRY.  I cannot abide that.
            Pelosi clearly defied the Logan Act by going to Syria , which should have lead to imprisonment of three years and a heavy fine. 
            Jane Fonda did more to prolong the Vietnam war longer than any other human being (as acknowledged by Ho Chi Minh in his writing before he died).
She truly should have been indicted for treason, along with her radical husband, Tom Hayden, and forced to pay the consequences!
               
                This country has started to soften by not enforcing its laws, which is another indication of a Republic about to fall.  All Democrats, along with the Hollywood elite, are sending us headlong into a total defeat in the Middle East, which will finally give Iran total dominance in the region. A lack of oil in the near future will be the final straw that dooms this Republic.  However, if we refuse to let this happen and really get serious about an energy self-sufficiency program, this can be avoided.  I am afraid, however, that we are going in the opposite direction.  If we elect Hillary Clinton and a Democrat controlled congress, and they carry through with allowing Iran to take control of the Middle East, continue to refuse development of nuclear energy, refuse to allow drilling for new oil, and continue to do nothing but oppose everything Bush, it will be over in terms of what we view as the good life in the USA. (Nothing like a good rant that name drops all the names proven to make conservative blood boil and take the reader away from reason. Show me the proof that the intention of the Democratic party is to allow Iran to take control of middle eastern oil. I have my own issues with Democrats, but this is not one of them.)
               
                Now, do I think that all who do not support the war are un-American -- of course not.  They just do not understand the importance of total victory in that region.
                Another failure of George Bush is his inability to explain to the American people why we are there, and why we MUST win (True. Probably because that would also cause him to have to reveal the true cost of a military victory. Revealing that true cost would probably, more than anything else, cause an undeniable passion for Bush and Cheney’s impeachment.).  By the way, it is not a war.  The war was won four years ago.  It is martial law that is under attack by Iranian and Syrian outside influences, and there is a difference. (Excuse me, General, but this is still war. We are fighting a guerilla war, an insurgency in resistance to our occupation.)
                So, what do I believe?  What is the bottom line?  I will simply say that the Democratic Party has fielded the foulest, power hungry,  anti-country, self absorbed group of individuals that I have observed in my lifetime. Our educational system is partially to blame for allowing the mass of America to be taken in by this group.  George Bush has done the best he can with the disabilities that he possesses.
                A President must communicate with the people. And, I would tell you that Desert Storm spoiled the people.  Bush Senior's 100-hour war convinced the people that technology has progressed to the point that wars could be fought with no casualties and won in very short periods of time.  I remember feeling at the time, that this was a tragedy for the US military.  To win wars, you must put boots on the ground. When you put boots on the ground, soldiers are going to die.  A President must make the war decision wisely, and insure that the cause is right before using his last political option.  However, CONTROLLING IRAN AND DEMOCRATIZING THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE ONLY CHOICE IF WE ARE HELL-BENT ON DEPENDING ON THEM FOR OUR FUTURE ENERGY NEEDS. (And what if we are not ‘hell-bent’ on depending on them (the Iranians) for our future energy needs? What if we actually invest in energy independence and achieve it? What if we find a way to have zero oil imports from the region? Wouldn’t that mean that there no need for military action against Iran with its attendant costs in blood and treasure? Wouldn’t energy independence also mean that with lowered demand for Middle Eastern oil that the price of oil would go down? Wouldn’t that reduce Iranian and Middle Eastern influence in the rest of the world? Wouldn’t that deny Iran the cash they need to pay for their hate schools and buy weapons for Hezbollah?)

(There are other items I could comment on for its prejudice and lack of logic, but I think you get the idea. Now compare this to a trip report I will post by Gen Barry McCaffrey. I think you will find the contrast compelling and illuminating.)
               
                Jimmy L.  Cash, Brig. Gen., USAF, Ret.
                Lakeside , Montana 59922
              
 "I'll tell you what war is all about, you've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting" Gen. Curtis LeMay